Latest news with #BritishLeyland
TimesLIVE
5 days ago
- Automotive
- TimesLIVE
Ashok Leyland Phoenix cargo carrier arrives in Mzansi
Ashok Leyland is an Indian commercial vehicle maker which relaunched in SA in 2023 after last being sold here in the 1980s. One of India's largest bus manufacturers, the company was founded in 1948 as Ashok Motors and became Ashok Leyland in 1955 after an alliance with British Leyland, which also had manufacturing facilities in SA. The Dost single cab loader and Partner medium truck have been on offer in SA since 2023. They are joined by the new, mid-tier Phoenix with similar budget-conscious, no-frills workhorses. Phoenix With a price of R269,900, the new Phoenix single cab bakkie is squarely aimed at alternatives, including the Mahindra Bolero and Mahindra Pik Up single cabs. It is 5,025mm long, 1,842mm wide and 2,061mm high, but load volumes are the most obvious battle points in this niche. On this front it fights with a 2,950mm long, 1,750mm wide and 415mm high cargo deck rated with loading a max 1,850kg and available with drop sides. It's a three-seater cab with dash-mounted lever and controls, and power steering. It is powered by a 1.5 I three-cylinder diesel engine that outputs 59kW at 3,300rpm and 190Nm between 1,600rpm to 2,400rpm, paired with a five-speed manual transmission driving the rear wheels. Further mechanical wares include the front suspension with two-stage over-slung parabolic and double action shock absorbers in front and semi-elliptic items at the rear axles.
Times
19-05-2025
- Business
- Times
Sir Graeme Odgers obituary: chair of Monopolies Commission
Graeme Odgers, a senior official at the Department of Trade and Industry, was chairing a meeting of leading British bankers in the boardroom of Barclays Bank. Across the table sat Alex Park, the chief executive of British Leyland, with the rest of his board. After an hour of tortured discussion, Odgers got to the heart of the problem: 'Mr Park, are you telling us that next week you may not be able to pay your employees' wages?' After a long silence, Park replied: 'Mr Odgers, I think I might be telling you that.' It was 1975 and British Leyland not only employed 250,000 workers but also indirectly supported about 300,000 in associated companies, meaning that a sizeable proportion of the country's workforce faced imminent unemployment.
BBC News
03-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Oxford United: When a potential new stadium was national news
For half an hour on 6 May 1981, Oxford United and its prospective football stadium was national Take The Mic programme was broadcast from the city and its 100 guests – including the U's chairman, manager and a future city MP – discussed how a potential new stadium could impact the Marston the end, the stadium didn't happen – one of many potential sites the club had hoped to use over a number of decades but ultimately was unable club only moved from The Manor to the Kassam Stadium in 2001 but, 24 years later, it is looking to move to The Triangle near Kidlington. The Take The Mic programme reveals that some of the arguments for and against football stadiums in Oxford have been used before. Back in 1981, Oxford was still awaiting its first "superstore". Several firms were hoping to build it in Marston but the rub was that if there was no superstore built, there would be no new Oxford United stadium either. "Oxford's more than a university town. It's a major manufacturing base, with British Leyland at Cowley and a regional centre, surrounded by small towns and villages," presenter David Freeman said. "Marston used to be such a village and it's at the centre of [the] argument." Marston resident Lynne Isaac, who told the audience she was a mother of five children and grandmother of nine, said the development would be "at the bottom of her garden"."We've watched this development for nine years. We have seen everybody over there working. We have watched it, we've put up with it for nine years," she said. Ian Greaves, who by May 1981 had managed Oxford United's first team for four months, sat next to the club's chairman Bill Reeves and coach Ray Graydon on the show. Greaves and Graydon had helped lead the U's to a 14th-placed finish in the then Third Division four days before the programme aired."The overall idea of the stadium has got to be excellent," said Greaves, who left Oxford in 1982. "Wherever the stadium is, whether it's Marston or wherever, it's got to be excellent. We are just about 100 years behind others in this respect [of community]."Remember a soccer club is only used once a fortnight. That's why the club's losing money - because there's only people going into the soccer club once a fortnight."The thing should be used every day. With the idea that is being mooted at the moment, this stadium will be used every day. Not just by the soccer club but by the local community." Andrew Smith was then the chairman of Oxford City Council's recreation committee. Mr Smith said the stadium would be a "plus when local authorities, because of the attacks on our ability to spend money by the current Conservative government, haven't got the money to put into these sorts of facilities ourselves".While he said residents had "legitimate concerns", the potential benefits for the football club and community outweighed the disadvantages. He was elected Oxford East's MP in 1987 and retired in 2017. James Simmonds, who lived in Marston, said that "faceless people in Jersey" stood to benefit from the scheme, which he said would lead to the "despoiling of our local village"."God created grass, trees, birds, tranquillity in Marston. We still require that tranquillity and it should not be despoiled just to make profits for faceless people. And that's what it's all about," he said. One guest, Carol, who lived in the Blackbird Leys area of the city, was aggrieved at the lack of facilities available there. "The Marston people don't want this stadium," she said. "They have got their beautiful views and their lovely birds singing in the trees. They want to live in Blackbird Leys with 4,500 kids and see what views those have kids got."Little could she have known that eventually the football club - and a leisure park, which itself could be built upon soon - would be based a stone's throw away at the site formerly known as Minchery Farm, between Blackbird Leys and Littlemore. Marston did get eventually a football stadium and sports complex at Court Place Farm in 1993, which is used by Oxford City, but the scale of it is much smaller than the one planned in the early 1980s. About 3,700 people, groups or businesses have commented on the current planning application for the potential Oxford United stadium at the Triangle near Kidlington. A decision on that is expected in the summer. You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
At $4,800, Is This 1985 Reliant Rialto A Reliable Deal?
In what's undeniably a questionable sales tactic, the ad for today's Nice Price or No Dice Reliant Rialto shows a similar model being crashed by Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear. Let's see if this car's price crashes our interest in the weird little three-wheeler. Yesterday's 2005 Audi Allroad 4.2 "Mechanic's Special" sparked a schism between the comments and the voting. Reactions to the wagon's panoply of problems indicated that many of you were none too keen on the prospect of taking on any attempt at resurrection. On the other hand, the 77 percent Nice Price win brought about by a low $2,500 price tag indicated an overall opinion that someone should. That concept of "perhaps for thee, but not for me" might apply to today's 1985 Reliant Rialto as well, considering that the major selling point offered in its ad is that a similar model was featured in a running gag on Top Gear, where it rolled over whenever someone looked at it funny. Read more: GM Hopes A Clutch Pedal Is Enough To Make Enthusiasts Buy EVs The reason for the turtle-turning is that this Reliant Rialto is a three-wheeler featuring the less-stable form factor of one in front, two in the back, which, oddly enough, is also how the third act of a lot of porn movies end up, or so I am told. Like many small cottage car makers in the UK throughout history, Reliant is no more. Before going belly up in 2002, Reliant made its name for itself building an odd mix of sports cars and small, three and four-wheel economy cars. At one point in the 1970s, it rose to second place in sales behind British Leyland in the pantheon of British-owned car makers. The reason the company built three-wheelers was money. Lacking a fourth wheel might have meant less stability on the road, but that was countered—in the UK, at least—by cheaper licensing, taxes, and insurance rates since the vehicles could be registered and driven as motorcycles. It's a similar case here in the States, although whether a trike is classified as a motorcycle or the more amorphous autocycle designation varies from state to state. That may be a moot point when considering this Rialto since it's old enough and sufficiently odd that any buyer might just register it as an antique and be done with it. The question, of course, is whether this car/bike/thing is worth diving into. Misidentified as a Robin in the ad, this Rialto is the model that bridged the Robin's bifurcated run. It's basically the same car, or at least fills the same niche. The basics are an 848 cc OHV four-cylinder engine making 40 horsepower and a four-speed manual gearbox driving a live axle suspended by cart springs in the back. A single wheel mounted on a pivoting mono-arm with a coil-over keeps the nose off the pavement and provides the steering, or at least what there is of it. This is all bolted to a square-section tube chassis and topped with a fiberglass body. As fitted, the Rialto can do 85 miles per hour, which must be terrifying. According to the odd ad, this Rialto has been in a barn for some undisclosed amount of time, but it does have its import papers in order. It still wears its original UK B registration plates and, of course, has its steering and controls on the right. This is the Estate body style, which has a more upright rear end than the coupe, and offers more interior space as a result. The ad says it's all complete, although some of the parts seem to have been haphazardly thrown into the cabin, so they may need some sorting. There are also some issues with the side glass in the back, which appears to either be busted on both sides or made up of aged-out plexiglass. Whatever, those will need to be addressed. So, too, will the spider hotel passing as the interior. On the plus side, nothing seems to be missing, save for the steering wheel hub, and everything looks nice and tidy under the bonnet. The ad claims the mileage to be 12K and the title status to be clean. No word is given on its running status or if it needs any mechanical refurbishment, however. The asking price is $4,800. Who might this Rialto be for? Well, likely someone with a penchant for such oddball little cars like the beloved YouTuber Robert Dunn, who actually has a Reliant Robin, or maybe the U.S. equivalent of Hub Nut's Ian Seabrook. And for the rest of us? Well, like I said, maybe it's not for many of us. That doesn't mean we can't voice an opinion on this little trike and its $4,800 asking price, which is just what we're going to do right now. What's your take on this Reliant at that $4,800 price? Is that a deal to relive a Top Gear top moment? Or does that just not bowl you over? You decide! Washington DC, Craigslist, or go here if the ad me out with NPOND. Hit me up at robemslie@ and send me a fixed-price tip. Remember to include your Kinja handle. Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
How to open your own car museum
There are more than 100 cars on display at County Classics Motor Museum So, you want to start a car museum. You will need some cars and a place to put them. You will also need deep pockets. Above all, you will need a vision and a cast-iron determination to achieve your goal. In short, you will need to be like Pat Hawkins. The 62-year-old has a light in his eyes that not even a brush with death could extinguish. It was six years ago. He had been rushed to hospital, suffering a rare heart condition. At the last moment, a specialist from Chicago agreed to operate. A few weeks later, as his strength returned, Hawkins vowed to give back to his home town of Taunton. He had just the idea… Since he was a boy, Hawkins had dreamed of owning his own garage, and by the age of 11 he had bought and sold his first car. At 15, Hawkins was apprenticed to a British Leyland dealer as a mechanic, and in the evenings he carried on trading. Three years later, Hawkins began dealing full time. By 21, he had bought the first of many garages. However, by the 1980s, the trade had begun to change: everyone wanted to be a dealer. So Hawkins started selling tyres, undercutting all of his rivals by importing them directly from Germany. By 39, he had 13 tyre depots – and then Tom Farmer, founder of Kwik Fit, rang. 'He said he wanted to buy me out,' recalls Hawkins. 'I was thinking about getting into property, so I sold out for £1 million.' It was the late 1990s, and at the same time as buying properties, Hawkins had started buying what he considered future classic cars: common and more rarefied motors, always immaculate and with solid service histories and low mileages. Come 2018 and, while Hawkins was recovering in hospital, the local council served him a compulsory purchase order on one of his plots of land. This visionary, this deal maker, this man who had come close to death was ready for them – and made an offer they couldn't refuse. 'My big idea to give something back to Taunton was to open a car museum in the centre of the town, and I knew just the place: a failing food store called County Stores that had been trading since 1832,' says Hawkins. 'I told the council I wouldn't make buying my land difficult if they would help facilitate my plans. They agreed.' That was the easy bit. The hard part was relieving the owners of their keys and then, with sleeves rolled up and talented tradespeople hired, refurbishing and converting the tired 23,500sq ft shop. That took a year, and by the time the museum was ready to be occupied, Hawkins had burned through £3.5m. Meanwhile, he was continuing to buy display cars from private sellers and at auctions. 'All told, the cars have cost me around £2.5m,' he says. At last, in November 2023, County Classics Motor Museum was ready to open; The Grand Tour presenter Richard Hammond cut the red tape and the first visitors passed through the doors. Just as they did then, greeting today's arrivals are more than 100 cars, most of them spanning the 1950s to the 1990s, and an equal number of motorcycles. An eclectic mix of the common, the rare, the beautiful and the fascinating, most of the cars are low-mileage and have just one previous owner, and all of them are in original condition. For a flavour of how diverse the collection is, it includes Ford Capris, probably the most rust-free Fiat X1/9 in the country, a Ford Mustang Mach 1, a Datsun 280ZX, a super-rare Nissan Cherry Europe GTi, a Porsche 911 3.2 SC, a 1961 Porsche 718 RS 61 Spyder, a genuine 1997 AC Cobra Superblower 5L, a pair of Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 1 Group A and Lancia Fulvia S1 rally cars, a Ford Racing Puma, a Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9, a Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk1, a rare Subaru XT 4WD Turbo and an Audi Quattro Turbo. All these plus a Jaguar E-Type, a Triumph Dolomite, a Morris Marina, a Mini Metro, a Toyota MR2 Mk1… 'For most middle-age visitors, they're the cars of their youth – although one 90-year-old gentleman was delighted to see our Austin Seven Special,' says Hawkins. To date, the museum has welcomed 45,000 visitors, one of them being Martin Read, who has driven up from Torquay. 'I'm shocked by how much they have here,' he says. 'I'm that impressed, I've bought an annual pass.' Hawkins is convinced that his museum will be a boon for Taunton. 'We know people are making special journeys to come and then seeing the rest of the town,' he says. 'The council had a good deal.' And so did car enthusiasts. ]]>
